


Force Fed

by Zeeboa



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Based on a drawing, Castle Malfunction, Cosumosu is a wonderful artist please check her out, Food Issues, Fun with tenses, Gen, Hurt Lance, Hurt/Comfort, Lance hurts emotionally but takes it because the writer is in a mood, Sentient Castle, Unintentional Starvation, edit: Lance hurts emotionally because its what he's used to, its not really comfort, sentient robot, taking liberties with the paladin bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:46:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13254432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeeboa/pseuds/Zeeboa
Summary: The Castle is only trying to help even if Lance can't see that.





	Force Fed

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case, I don't want to hurt anyone  
> Warning: Lance doesn't eat for a Good portion of this fic. Not because of an eating disorder but if this is similar to something that you've struggled with and you're not comfortable please read with care. I'm a big dummy who doesn't heed my own triggers and it just makes for a bad day. And I wouldn't want you to feel the same.

The guilty feeling in his gut won't go away and it's a problem because he's hungry but he doesn't want to eat in fear of it not staying down. He messed up, it's as simple as that. The mission wasn’t even a big one but because of him they lost new intel. 

“Shoot the left control panel Lance we need that door jammed!” he couldn't even do that. And it wasn’t even his fault, you could blame it on the Galra that had made it up to his vantage point and getting in a good hit to his head before his bayard morphs into something more wieldy. It takes him a bit to push the body off himself but by then it's too late. Druids enter the chamber and toast the station Pidge was working at. “Fuck, we need to retreat. Pidge grab what you got and let's go.” And they flee tensions riding high.

The anger and frustration radiating through the team eats at him. They didn’t even say anything when they got back to the castle. Pidge just throws herself into her work hoping to find something she missed now that they hadn’t retrieved all the information they had set out to. Hunk at least gives Lance a shrug before limping to the med bay Shiro helping him along. And Keith, don’t even get him started. He was a whirling vortex of negative energy if you got too close you’d be sucked in too.

He misses dinner not that he could have eaten with the way his head feels like it's not screwed onto his shoulders. He misses breakfast choosing to train around a specific scenario. By the end of the next day, the ache of hunger is a distant thought in the back of his mind.

The flow of the castle goes back to semi-normal. The only issues being tiny malfunctions that they attribute to the age of the ship. Until Pidge runs into the dining room fear clear on her face.  
“There was a virus in the information I got Allura I don't know if the ship is compromised.” 

“That would explain all malfunctions.” when Pidge’s face doesn't smooth back Allura is quick to assure her. “The ship works like a body, its already sent out it's white blood cells to fight off what's infected it. These hiccups are the few things that get through.” The explanation does ease the fear that gripped Pidge but she can't help but to feel bad for bringing the virus onto the ship. 

“If those druids didn't get in, this probably wouldn't have happened.” The first bite Lance was about to move into his mouth wavers before he sets down his spoon.  
“That was days ago, let's all admit that it could have gone better. But that's done now.” Lance’s appetite is gone again like it had been for days. He excuses himself in during a swell of conversation but nobody seems to notice.

Hunger isn't a good look for Lance, pair that with his restless nights and you’ve got a recipe for trouble. He ends up wandering the halls going the long way to his room until he’s knocked down. At first he doesn't know what hits him only that he's on the floor pain radiating from his back. When he turns around he doesn't expect to see one of the gladiator bots standing behind him. “What the fu-” the bot doesn't give him time to finish his sentence before it's dragging him back towards it.

He screams and the cold metallic hand shoved into his mouth muffling him. It's stronger than he gives it credit for or he's just weak with fear. When it slams his head against the wall his vision explodes in stars. Air escapes his lungs and he can't suck in a breath because the bot forces goo down his throat. It's so cold as it goes down freezing his mouth, his throat, it feels like he's being frozen from the inside out. His attempts to push the bot off weakens and spots dance in his vision as the last of his oxygen begins to run out. 

It's then that the machine decides that it's ward had been fed and its mission was complete. With no ceremony it collapses onto Lance and it's that last mission all over again however this time he's shivering too much to even be useful.With heaving breathes he shoves it off and stands on fawn legs. He needs to tell Allura that it's not just tiny hiccups. The first step takes him to his knees the head injury exacerbating his nausea. Between heaving and trying again to stand he loses time. The only indication of its passage is the slowly dimming ambient light throughout the castle. Not that he can tell, he doesn't even know how he got here or why his head and stomach hurt so much. He’s still freezing 

He sits against the wall looking around dazed. To his right he sees a robot which is kinda cool that they're that big but someone puked right next to it, gross. He blinks and when he opens his eyes again the world is fuzzy. “Lance- ok?” is what he thinks he says The Hunk shaped blob is saying. Hunk blob is gone again and he's lying down in the medbay. He remembers for a brief moment that he needs to tell Allura something and sits up. “Allura! I need to-” the movement puts him off balance and a hand steadys him. His head hurts too much he’ll tell her later he decides and he doesn’t see the five worried pair of eyes watching him as he falls unconscious again.

“Is he getting worse? I didn’t even understand him that time.” The team sits in various places all around the room with different expressions of worry waiting for Shiro to answer. “I’m not sure, the concussions I’ve dealt with haven't been this bad. His pupils aren’t dilating though so that's a good sign.” that doesn’t do anything to ease their worry. Pidge moves from her seat to stand next to Lance again it's been an hour and he wakes on and off repeating the same few things. Robots in the hall, a warning for Allura, and for some reason apologies. She’s worried and it shows on her face. 

“This is my fault, if I didn’t plug in that device.” 

“Pidge no, this isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have know.” She shoves away Shiro’s comforting hand and angrily wipes away tears.

“Yeah, but it still happened because of me.” Tears stream down her face anyway as she takes Lance’s hand.  
“I mean if you really want to play the blame game, then Lance did this to himself.” She whirls shocked at Keith’s audacity. “How could you say that!”

“He didn’t shoot the door so it would close, he was the one who let the druids in and in turn it was his fault they infected the data.” 

Her jaw clenches in anger, furious that he would even blame Lance for what happened to him.

“Feels bad doesn’t it. Pidge don’t blame yourself, things happen, missions go bad like it did a few days ago. We can’t keep blaming ourselves for it. We just move on and improve.” She doesn’t shrug off Shiro’s hand this time when he goes in to hug her. 

“He hadn’t been eating.” Hunk murmurs as he looks over the holographic screens. Coran peers over and his face scrunches in confusion.  
“How are you seeing this the castle doesn’t keep records of this kind of thing.”  
“It was just there. Between his readings, and all this other stuff.”

Coran fiddles with with the screens for a moment “Shiro may I scan you?” Shiro stands still as the beam passes over him and the result is the normal charts and the new food schedule. “This is odd.” 

“What is it?”  
“It looks like the castle was keeping record of your feeding habits for a while. But why?” 

“What would it have used the information for?” They can’t make heads or tails of it and while it was odd, it didn’t seem like harmful information. They shelve the issue and Coran makes the call to put him in a healing pod after their lengthy observation of the boy.

~ 

When Lance steps out of the pod he’s greeted with the warmest bear hug which exactly what he needed. “How long was I out?” He’s only hugged tighter and that kinda gives him an answer. 

He’s ushered to the dining hall the team prepared to get his eating habits back on track. A bowl goo is placed in front of him and he smiles. “Wow, and it's not even my birthday.” He spoons a bite into his mouth and spits it out immediately his body locking in an unknown fear. “Lance you ok?” His face is deathly white and his hands shake as he staggers away from the table. “ I don’t know, I can’t-” He gags and a waste basket is placed under his face. But nothing. He sits heavily on the ground. Coran kneels next to him rubbing cirles on his back. “Lance, we need to run some tests to see if your brain is working ok.” “Wait what happened to my head.” Nobody speaks for a moment. 

“You don’t remember? He tries to think back but the latest things he remembers are the long days after the mission when he couldn’t make himself eat. His stomach growls and for the first time in days he realizes he has a real appetite. But not for goo, never for goo. 

They explain how they found him and his injuries but none of it rings a bell. Food was a little bit higher on his priority list at the moment and luckily Hunk had ingredients to make “real” food that Lance could actually keep down. They reconvene in the training room the Mind link circlets already sitting on a podium. 

Lance places his on first and there seems to be no issue with his head. He insists that he feels fine if not tired. Before they call it for the day Allura speaks up.  
“Alright now Paladins, we’re going to try a mind link to see if your ability to form Voltron hasn’t been impaired.” they place the bands on the head and in the beginning everything goes well the holographic lions floating towards each other but just as they’re about to form Voltron they’re thrown into a memory. It’s the same mission but this time from Lance’s eyes. Pidge hears her frantic screaming for the door to be jammed. Shiro sees himself cutting down android after android the rest don’t see themselves, Only stars when a Galra bashes Lance’s head. They’re wrapped with fear as they watch the memory of Lance grappling with someone twice his size. They wince when it collapses on him from that point it just goes down hill for Lance. They remember individually their response and as moving as Keith’s speech was there was no way he believed what he said in the moment he stormed off returning to the castle. 

They see through Lance’s eyes as he holes himself in his room trying to stop the dizziness that takes him. He doesn’t eat that night. They follow him and feel his guilt for screwing up the mission. They train with him noticing that the training room is the exact same scenario as the mission. He doesn’t eat that morning. They feel each other tense when they realize what day his memory finally reached. Despair radiates through their bond when they witness what he went through. They feel his fear, desperation and the horrifying feeling of suffocation.Their journey ends when memory Lance puts on the Circlet. 

They slam back into their bodies and rip off the Mind Link all eyes shooting to Lance who is curled in on himself. “What a way for memories to come back right?” it’s only a whisper from his mouth but they hear it.  
“Lance, you never said-” but now they know why he didn’t say anything. They felt the guilt, they felt their own fury or impassiveness. How could he have told them. “Its fine, I’m fine now no big deal.”

“No but it is a big deal. We just assumed you were goofing off or something and that was why you didn’t-. We’re so sorry Lance.” Lance sniffles “I thought I was going to die and then you guys just brushed me off. I make every shot you ask of me and this one time I don’t you just assume?” He takes in a shaky breath palming away tears. “I’m ok now, even if the castle almost killed me, I’m stronger for it and I‘m stronger for this too. Now if you excuse me I need to be alone for a bit.” 

He leaves and no one follows. But at the end of the day they venture into his room one by one bringing blankets and pillows till his floor is a sea of them. He’s not upset with them, well he is but to him human nature can’t be changed. His siblings were like this. All the times he defended them, sacrificed for them and they only remember the time he didn’t. At the end of the day he still loved them despite the hurt they sometimes cause. And that goes for this family too.

**Author's Note:**

> Work inspiration: https://hardlynotnever.tumblr.com/post/165922339210/31-days-of-kink-day-1-forced-feeding-castle
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading my work!  
> You can find me on [ Tumblr ](https://wriiteitdown.tumblr.com)


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